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For all the respect and admiration I have for Alan Kay, I think he's often showing a lot of bad faith. His ideal vision is always described in very abstract te

For all the respect and admiration I have for Alan Kay, I think he's often showing a lot of bad faith. His ideal vision is always described in very abstract terms. If he took the care to write it down precisely, what it should look like, I'm sure there would be hundreds eager to build it for him. Of course, part of it is "design principles". But then do some common use cases. When the abstraction meets reality we get comments like "the iPad should have a pen". Which is really an interesting observation, but doesn't quite rill the crowd like the abstract impressive-sounding stuff does. And you'd hardly call these isolated observation "vision". Clearly, the user interfaces we have today are sub-optimal, and I can make hundreds of factual remarks on what could be improved. But I don't think this works out to a "vision". In fact, a vision is I think sometimes bound to be too abstract. If we just had products where the shit was fixed relentlessly, I reckon we'd get to "good" without needing them.

ktRolster 9y ago
His ideal vision is always described in very abstract terms. If he took the care to write it down precisely, what it should look like, I'm sure there would be hundreds eager to build it for him. Look at Squeak. http://squeak.org/ http://squeak.org/ The idea that you should be able to dig in and modify things is very powerful. Another way to look at it is in terms of discoverability: you are at one level of understanding (using the phone, clicking on things), and it should lead you to a deeper level of understanding (perhaps moving things around, modifying them). At each level, there are hooks inviting you deeper, drawing you in. Ideally you get down low enough to start programming, to actually understanding how assembly and the CPU works, so there is no longer any area of magic.
pvg 9y ago
Maybe you disagree with him or perhaps think his position is ill-considered or too woolly or somesuch. But 'bad faith'? You really believe he's being intentionally duplicitous and deceptive?
bitwize 9y ago
On Hackernews there was once a skeptic of postmodernism who got into a debate with a Derrida fan. The skeptic said "If deconstruction is not BS, how about you explain to us, in plain English, what it's all about." The Derrida fan replied "No. How about you demonstrate that you've read Husserl, Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, and Levinas. Then we can begin to talk about Derrida." If Alan Kay were like the Derrida fan, then he could have rebuffed anyone who came asking what the Dynabook was about with "How about you demonstrate that you've studied the achievements of McLuhan, Montessori, Papert, Minsky, Engelbart, etc. Then we'll talk." Of course he's not like that so he's going to try to give the reporter a bit of the background he has in those things and let them figure it out for themself. The Dynabook is supposed to be, roughly, an iPad with a keyboard, stylus, and a Lisp Machine-like OS. Of course Apple and third parties have closed the gap with keyboards and styli but it's the OS that's the really important bit because in order for a Dynabook to be a Dynabook it must not be a thing that you can just download and run preapproved apps on. You have to be able to discover -- and change -- the entire system from the bare metal on up. Think "Stallmanism on steroids". It's like a television you can talk back to. Computing is a dynamic medium that demands interaction from its user, so to deny the user the ability to question and change the assumptions of the medium is to lock them in to certain stereotyped modes of interaction and deny the full richness of the medium. This is where Kay's "real guitar vs. Guitar Hero" analogy comes in. You can either have a device that offers its full potential up front, like a real guitar, or you can have a device that can only be used in circumscribed ways, in vague imitation of having the full richness of the original device, like Guitar Hero. The price you pay for having a real guitar, or a real Dynabook, is what we call "ease of use" -- the ability for a complete neophyte to pick it up and immediately display something resembling proficiency with it. (It is much easier for a trained data-entry clerk to operate a 3270 terminal than it is for that same clerk to fill out a modern Web form, but that sort of ease doesn't count.) And Apple has really doubled down on ease of use, at the expense of everything else wonderful about having a powerful computing device you can hold in one hand. To the point where it's become just like regular, can't-talk-back-to-it television.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  The basic problem there is that no company in the industry, from Apple all the way to the lowliest gray box manufacturer in China is not interested in that. OLPC tried, it got hoodwinked by Microsoft et al. Mozilla tried, FirefoxOS bombed. Hell even Linux is turning ever more complex an opaque year by year. Simple thing is that such flexibility self support do not sell widgets and support contracts, and thus company are not interested in making them.
loup-vaillant 9y ago
You must not be familiar with the STEPS project, a complete OS project (with a compiler collection, 2D vector drawing and compositing, desktop publishing, online communications…), in 20K lines of code. Mainstream OSes by comparison are more like 200M lines (10K books). That stuff is pretty concrete, with an actual GUI and real software. One can get their hands on the source code, though it's really not meant for public consumption (it was a proof of concept, not a commercial product). Here are the progress reports (latest first): http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2012001_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2012001_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2010004_steps10.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2010004_steps10.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2009016_steps09.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2009016_steps09.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2008004_steps08.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2008004_steps08.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf That stuff definitely works out to a vision.
- mwcampbell 9y ago
  Are binaries available, to run in a VM at least? Also, can you provide a link to the source code?
  - corysama 9y ago
    Some software and code are linked here http://www.vpri.org/vp_wiki/ http://www.vpri.org/vp_wiki/
    - justin66 9y ago
      But not the "STEPS" project's code, apparently.
- justin66 9y ago
  > One can get their hands on the source code Where?
- norswap 9y ago
  "it was a proof of concept, not a commercial product" Within that distinction, lies dragons. The issues I have with existing systems are divided in two categories: bugs/issues/not being polished enough, and conceptual inadequacy. Most of my issues with actual products fall within the first bucket, because the second bucket actually means I'd want another product. This is where innovation is. That being said, unlike Kay, I don't loathe what we have. I'd be very happy if it was just better. But, like him, I thin the fact it's bad has deep roots in the way it is conceived. I think another commenter hit the nail on the head when he said that Kay was mostly disappointed with users. About Steps specifically, I haven't tried it out, but I harbor a lot of doubt. A huge amount of work goes into making stuff merely tolerable. Something I do have experience with is Pharo Smalltalk (which I believe is the most advanced offering in the market). In theory, having your own small universe based on coherent principle is heaven. In practice, it feels very constricting to work inside that box (the Smalltalk image), because you don't have access to some of your best power tools, or even to some basic modern niceties. (Pharo Smalltalk and great, and improving steadily, you should try it out. But I don't see myself calling myself a Smalltalk developer/hacker any time soon.)
Animats 9y ago
His ideal vision is always described in very abstract terms. If he took the care to write it down precisely, what it should look like, I'm sure there would be hundreds eager to build it for him. He did. There's "Personal Dynamic Media", the classic paper.[1] Kay's vision focused on the user as creator, rather than consumer, of information. In practice, most people are content to watch the boob tube, now available in handheld. This has been the frustration of new media inventors from Edison to Zworykin. What Kay is complaining about is the banality of computing today. That's a problem with humans, not computers. Kay also thought that discrete event simulation was going to be really important. Smalltalk is based on SIMULA, which was a discrete event extension of ALGOL-60. Objects were supposed to be entities in the simulation. In practice, discrete event simulation is a tiny niche application of computing. (I got a tour of PARC in 1975 when taking a course at UC Santa Cruz, met Kay and Goldberg, and saw some of the first Altos. The idea back then was "this is what can be done with enough money. Someday it will be cheap." Eventually it was, but not soon enough for Xerox. Years later, I programmed an Alto in Mesa while at Stanford, although by then it was obsolete.) [1] http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-26-kay.pdf http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-26-kay.pdf
- hamilyon2 9y ago
  Doesn't your typical business application model some discrete events on the real world? Why is object oriented programming so popular of it doesn't meet needs of software it helped to write? There should be some correspondance between principles that layed foundation of OOP and their application, and OOP's popularity os not a coincidence
  - db48x 9y ago
    Most of what OOP is used for is to implement the thousands of minor details that go into implementing a complex system. Peruse the Firefox source code some time; you'll find a large class hierarchy of different types of strings, and another one for different types of DOM nodes, and another for different types of documents that the nodes belong to, another for windows of various types, another for various types of images that it can decode, etc. None of that has anything to do with modelling entities in the real world.

ktRolster 9y ago

His ideal vision is always described in very abstract terms. If he took the care to write it down precisely, what it should look like, I'm sure there would be hundreds eager to build it for him. Look at Squeak. http://squeak.org/ http://squeak.org/ The idea that you should be able to dig in and modify things is very powerful. Another way to look at it is in terms of discoverability: you are at one level of understanding (using the phone, clicking on things), and it should lead you to a deeper level of understanding (perhaps moving things around, modifying them). At each level, there are hooks inviting you deeper, drawing you in. Ideally you get down low enough to start programming, to actually understanding how assembly and the CPU works, so there is no longer any area of magic.

pvg 9y ago

Maybe you disagree with him or perhaps think his position is ill-considered or too woolly or somesuch. But 'bad faith'? You really believe he's being intentionally duplicitous and deceptive?

bitwize 9y ago

On Hackernews there was once a skeptic of postmodernism who got into a debate with a Derrida fan. The skeptic said "If deconstruction is not BS, how about you explain to us, in plain English, what it's all about." The Derrida fan replied "No. How about you demonstrate that you've read Husserl, Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, and Levinas. Then we can begin to talk about Derrida." If Alan Kay were like the Derrida fan, then he could have rebuffed anyone who came asking what the Dynabook was about with "How about you demonstrate that you've studied the achievements of McLuhan, Montessori, Papert, Minsky, Engelbart, etc. Then we'll talk." Of course he's not like that so he's going to try to give the reporter a bit of the background he has in those things and let them figure it out for themself. The Dynabook is supposed to be, roughly, an iPad with a keyboard, stylus, and a Lisp Machine-like OS. Of course Apple and third parties have closed the gap with keyboards and styli but it's the OS that's the really important bit because in order for a Dynabook to be a Dynabook it must not be a thing that you can just download and run preapproved apps on. You have to be able to discover -- and change -- the entire system from the bare metal on up. Think "Stallmanism on steroids". It's like a television you can talk back to. Computing is a dynamic medium that demands interaction from its user, so to deny the user the ability to question and change the assumptions of the medium is to lock them in to certain stereotyped modes of interaction and deny the full richness of the medium. This is where Kay's "real guitar vs. Guitar Hero" analogy comes in. You can either have a device that offers its full potential up front, like a real guitar, or you can have a device that can only be used in circumscribed ways, in vague imitation of having the full richness of the original device, like Guitar Hero. The price you pay for having a real guitar, or a real Dynabook, is what we call "ease of use" -- the ability for a complete neophyte to pick it up and immediately display something resembling proficiency with it. (It is much easier for a trained data-entry clerk to operate a 3270 terminal than it is for that same clerk to fill out a modern Web form, but that sort of ease doesn't count.) And Apple has really doubled down on ease of use, at the expense of everything else wonderful about having a powerful computing device you can hold in one hand. To the point where it's become just like regular, can't-talk-back-to-it television.

digi_owl 9y ago
The basic problem there is that no company in the industry, from Apple all the way to the lowliest gray box manufacturer in China is not interested in that. OLPC tried, it got hoodwinked by Microsoft et al. Mozilla tried, FirefoxOS bombed. Hell even Linux is turning ever more complex an opaque year by year. Simple thing is that such flexibility self support do not sell widgets and support contracts, and thus company are not interested in making them.

loup-vaillant 9y ago

You must not be familiar with the STEPS project, a complete OS project (with a compiler collection, 2D vector drawing and compositing, desktop publishing, online communications…), in 20K lines of code. Mainstream OSes by comparison are more like 200M lines (10K books). That stuff is pretty concrete, with an actual GUI and real software. One can get their hands on the source code, though it's really not meant for public consumption (it was a proof of concept, not a commercial product). Here are the progress reports (latest first): http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2012001_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2012001_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2010004_steps10.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2010004_steps10.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2009016_steps09.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2009016_steps09.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2008004_steps08.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2008004_steps08.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf That stuff definitely works out to a vision.

mwcampbell 9y ago
Are binaries available, to run in a VM at least? Also, can you provide a link to the source code?
- corysama 9y ago
  Some software and code are linked here http://www.vpri.org/vp_wiki/ http://www.vpri.org/vp_wiki/
  - justin66 9y ago
    But not the "STEPS" project's code, apparently.
justin66 9y ago
> One can get their hands on the source code Where?
norswap 9y ago
"it was a proof of concept, not a commercial product" Within that distinction, lies dragons. The issues I have with existing systems are divided in two categories: bugs/issues/not being polished enough, and conceptual inadequacy. Most of my issues with actual products fall within the first bucket, because the second bucket actually means I'd want another product. This is where innovation is. That being said, unlike Kay, I don't loathe what we have. I'd be very happy if it was just better. But, like him, I thin the fact it's bad has deep roots in the way it is conceived. I think another commenter hit the nail on the head when he said that Kay was mostly disappointed with users. About Steps specifically, I haven't tried it out, but I harbor a lot of doubt. A huge amount of work goes into making stuff merely tolerable. Something I do have experience with is Pharo Smalltalk (which I believe is the most advanced offering in the market). In theory, having your own small universe based on coherent principle is heaven. In practice, it feels very constricting to work inside that box (the Smalltalk image), because you don't have access to some of your best power tools, or even to some basic modern niceties. (Pharo Smalltalk and great, and improving steadily, you should try it out. But I don't see myself calling myself a Smalltalk developer/hacker any time soon.)

Animats 9y ago

His ideal vision is always described in very abstract terms. If he took the care to write it down precisely, what it should look like, I'm sure there would be hundreds eager to build it for him. He did. There's "Personal Dynamic Media", the classic paper.[1] Kay's vision focused on the user as creator, rather than consumer, of information. In practice, most people are content to watch the boob tube, now available in handheld. This has been the frustration of new media inventors from Edison to Zworykin. What Kay is complaining about is the banality of computing today. That's a problem with humans, not computers. Kay also thought that discrete event simulation was going to be really important. Smalltalk is based on SIMULA, which was a discrete event extension of ALGOL-60. Objects were supposed to be entities in the simulation. In practice, discrete event simulation is a tiny niche application of computing. (I got a tour of PARC in 1975 when taking a course at UC Santa Cruz, met Kay and Goldberg, and saw some of the first Altos. The idea back then was "this is what can be done with enough money. Someday it will be cheap." Eventually it was, but not soon enough for Xerox. Years later, I programmed an Alto in Mesa while at Stanford, although by then it was obsolete.) [1] http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-26-kay.pdf http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-26-kay.pdf

hamilyon2 9y ago
Doesn't your typical business application model some discrete events on the real world? Why is object oriented programming so popular of it doesn't meet needs of software it helped to write? There should be some correspondance between principles that layed foundation of OOP and their application, and OOP's popularity os not a coincidence
- db48x 9y ago
  Most of what OOP is used for is to implement the thousands of minor details that go into implementing a complex system. Peruse the Firefox source code some time; you'll find a large class hierarchy of different types of strings, and another one for different types of DOM nodes, and another for different types of documents that the nodes belong to, another for windows of various types, another for various types of images that it can decode, etc. None of that has anything to do with modelling entities in the real world.